Creating Better Money Management Habits For Women

Creating Better Money Management Habits for Women

By Grace Sunnell

Creating Better Money Management Habits for Women

By Grace Sunnell

Table of Contents

0

Preface

1

Introduction

2

Function and Usability

Opening note

Problem Research Opportunities Product Concept

How Bags Are Used Personas

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2 4 6 7

10 12

3

Technology

4

Aesthetic

Prototyping Kit Graphics LEDs Coding

Smart Bags Ideation and Prototyping Design for Users

5

Website

6

Conclusion

Work Flow and Wireframing Survey Digital Wireframing Prototyping Style Guide Final Website Design

Final Product Context Continued Development

16 19 20 21

26 28 30

38 40 42 43 44 45

48 57 58

0

Hello, reader. This is the second book of my 5th year Industrial and Interaction design thesis project. Having started out the first semester solely researching the problem I wanted to tackle and the stakeholders involved, I continued the rest of the year developing a more finalized design direction. This book will show my design process starting from the goals and opportunities I uncovered during my research and ending with a prototype.

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INTRO Where I left off in this project after my semester of research

Reminder of the Problem

The problem begins with a few initial insights. First, our economy is transforming into a digital platform. The phrase, “There’s an app for that,” has never been so real and relevant. There is no longer a reason to go to your bank or speak to a person. Everything is online and everything is instant. You no longer feel your money, it’s just somewhere in the Cloud. You no longer feel any actual decrease with just the swipe of a card. Everything has become intangible and the tangible is becoming a memory.

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Second, when it comes to personal finance, the future is not looking great for my generation. Social security is running dry and due to higher tuition rates and the growing consumer lifestyle, we young people are thinking only about the present. Not to mention the issue that we are probably going to have a higher life expectancy and so we also need money for a longer period of time than past generations.

Third, women can be better than men at a lot of things but they have not been expected to be. Finance is one of those things. Women are not afraid to ask the dumb questions, they are not afraid to learn, and then things become very clear to them. Women don’t just use their instincts but also their educational experiences.

However, society has made it so that women feel like certain career paths and certain tasks are better for men.

3

Research Summary

Demographics There were four important discoveries I came across when researching demographics. One is that children do not understand money management until they understand the concept of future. If a person is not focused or considerate of their future, they will most likely be poor with money.

Second, young women are less confident about their money than men but are more likely to budget themselves. However, they may be budgeting themselves poorly because they have not been given the proper education on finance.

Also, since men tend to be more ego-centric than women, they are often better with long-term financing such as investments or savings because they are more likely to be thinking about their overall well-being.

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Human Nature You may think that to assume this of men is a generalization and it is true that not all men are more ego-centric than women.

However, we have to recognize our limitations as humans and our biological make up in order to improve our flaws. For instance, it is scientifically proven that humans are bad with money. This is because our brains do not always work in a logical, long-term way. We have been genetically programmed to make nonsensical decisions. As humans, we also have the power to perceive. Sometimes when we make perceptions, like for instance, perceptions about money, we create biases and negative feelings towards something that could be harmless. How will you become better at financing your life if you are afraid of it?

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Opportunities

These are the collection of opportunities I uncovered during my research process.

“Time is money” could be applied in a functional way - a product that simply slows the user down from not spending A product that recognizes a person’s flaws and creates good habits based off them A product designed mindfully of how it will be used A product that is a baby step working with a pre-existing service or foundation Target my product towards women in order to contribute to the current campaign for equality of women in mathematical fields as well as to promote financial literacy in young people Brand my product in a way that shows it has women’s best interest at heart and presents a realistic image of women Use self-esteem in the branding and a new outlook on spending to create product for women who have created a negative lifestyle because of their spending habits Feel-good product that triggers the user into making educated, thoughtful decisions about their spending

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Product Concept

The product system should include a product, mobile access to financial tools, and an educational database. Because there are already many successful money management apps on the market, the product will be compatible with these apps and the interface portion of this project will focus on the educational access, customization for each user’s individual needs and lifestyle, and making finance seem more personal.

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2

Function + Usability Identifying user personas in relation to bag design and applying financial advice

How bags are used

Ryn’s Bag

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Ryn doesn’t carry a purse. She either uses all or nothing. In her backpack was a collection of collected papers from community groups and establishments, notebooks, miscellaneous necessities, and extra shoes.

Cristina’s Purse Cristina was prepared with any and all necessities needed when not at home for basic hygienic needs. Within her purse were multiple smaller pouches each with a different subject matter.

Ursula’s Bag

Cristina’s Bag

Ursula had lots of small loose items in her backpack. Things that could get lost easily. She tried to compartmentalize these items but the system didn’t seem very clear.

Like her purse, Cristina’s bag was very organized by subject.

It was clear that this was not her carry-all bag like Ryn, this was her school bag.

I used these insights to map out different bag styles and what compartments are used for different subject matters.

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Personas

I created five personas to use as design tools. The personas were based off of different types of women that I uncovered during my research on spending habits and financial situations. In each persona, I developed a bio, current financial situation, foreseeable goals, general lifestyle, and common characteristics of women of a similar age group and background.

Sarah, age 7 Sarah wants to buy a new pair of shoes but only receives a certain amount of money for allowance per month. She also likes making flower crowns.

Lily, age 16 Lily needs to save up to buy herself a new car. Her social life is very important to her and she just got her license but has barely been able to take advantage of it. She will probably get a part time job.

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Hannah, age 20 Hannah needs to money in order to keep up with her spending level while at college. She has money that she tries not to dip into from her summer job but would like a source of income to pay for her miscellaneous expenses Kristen, age 23 Kristen travels a lot on weekends, visiting friends and trying varies outdoor activities. She just graduated college and expenses are tight. She needs a budget that can accommodate travel and leisure while still being frugal.

Mary, age 35 Mary and her husband Mark bought a house and are planning on having kids in the near future. She wants to start a savings account to set aside money for their future.

After expanding on these personas, I researched financial advice for each situation and used that as the start of a general financial database that would be present on the product website.

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3

Technology How can I take advantage of existing money management tools and incorporate financial reminders into a physical product?

Prototyping Arduino

Having done no coding, programming, or electrical work of any kind in my lifetime, besides playing around with HTML on Myspace in middle school, prototyping with arduino was a tough thing for me. I started out by buying the arduino starter kit and going through some of the examples that were similar to what I wanted to accomplish with my LED display.

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I knew that I wanted to mimic the bar graph type graphics that money management apps used to display information and translate that into an LED display so I experimented with color changes and linear LED patterns.

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Graphic Tests

There will be three main features of the LED screen that are customizable by the user through their money management app and at product purchase. The user can choose between the amount of money in one or more accounts of their choice, a budgeting graph to warn them on different details of their spending, and graph to display how close they are to completing their goals.

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LED Options Depending on the number needed, they could be simply soldered to a small wearable arduino board and placed anywhere in the bag. This would give lots of options as to the graphic display of the financial information.

If the display is going to stay fairly linear, RGB Neopixel LED strips can be connected together for a customizable length. These would work for the more simple “amount” and “goals” features. The RGB LEDs also allow a wide range of colors.

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An RBG matrix display allows the most customizable shapes and patterns but takes up the most space. For prototyping, this could be the best options because it allows a lot of space and possibility for experimentation but for an actual bag design it would be too bulky.

Coding The coding ended up being a big struggle because there weren’t as many resources on how to code what I wanted as I thought there would be. Most people familiar with arduino had told me that their library and open source network would be really helpful during the coding process. However, since I ended up going with the 16x32 RGB matrix, there was much less code available on the product and it was very difficult to get any successful results, no matter how simple I made it. I wrote many code attempts with many failures, mainly picking a choosing parts from different tutorials. I ended up using one single line of code repeatedly. from Adafruit’s resource library that solved all my problems.

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4

Aesthetic Benchmarking, initial sketches, and prototyping forms

Smart Bag Benchmarking Before designing, I researched what similar fashion-related smart products were already on the market.

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Yanko Design

iBag

These bags are not a “smart� project but their designs rethought the usability and construction of a general, everyday use bag. I drew heavy inspiration from this concept.

iBag uses technology to sense when the user has spent too much money. The bag will lock, denying access to their wallet.

It also has LED lights on the inside to warn the user or tell them it is okay to spend.

Kate Spade

Leote

Kate Spade produced a line of bags that allow you to charge your phone or similar USB devices in the bag.

This specially designed bag is very similar to Kate Spade’s line. It has a similar high-end handbag aesthetic but was designed originally with the technology in mind, unlike Kate Spade.

CuteCircuit

Wocket

This couture clothing brand creates products embedded with RGB LED pixels that digitally create the pattern designs of their clothes. Some of the designs are interactive and play with the movement of the product in use.

There are a few smart wallets on the market that can detect whether you have left your card behind. This is one of them. Similarly, there are “wallets” that combine your cards into one so that you don’t need a real wallet.

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Ideation and Prototyping At the beginning of my prototyping stage, I had considered weaving the fabric that the bag would be made out of in order to create a custom design that would control the way light was seen through it. In the end, I found this unnecessary and maybe over zealous. These were weave and light tests from that idea.

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Designing for users I had difficulty narrowing down my designs originally because I wanted my products to be something that customizable and unique to each person but also a modest design.

I went back to my personas and designed a bag specifically for each of them. I asked myself what they would want in their bag, what technology help them, what aesthetic would fit their personality, how would their bag be used?

I came up with two designs per persona, then narrowed it down to one and created full scale silhouette drawings to get an idea of what these bags would be like in real life.

This helped me get a sense of aesthetic, identify the similarities in characteristics between the personas and their designs, and play with size and scale.

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This wall shows me mapping out my personas to their sketches and design. They are also paired with financial management features provided to them by the website component of this project (see next chapter).

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I ended up prototyping two styles, a large and medium. I included a wallet design in my final concept but did not end up prototyping it because it was very similar to existing designs. The medium and large style had unique pockets that needed to be worked out in the construction process in order to fit the arduino software in a very clean and easy to access way.

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5

Website User flow, wireframing, prototyping, and style guides for the educational database, shopping experience, and lifestyle survey

Work Flows and Wireframing I started out by making a work flow/written user journey of how the user would interact with the website and product in a general sense and specific sense. I built the basic button wireframe into the user journey to make sure all the features needed for the website were offered to create the best user experience.

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I think expanded from the button wireframe into a full wireframe, including a rough draft of the survey feature that would help guide the user through their product selection. The wireframe helped me organize the functions of the website and how elements should be grouped from a usability stand point.

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Survey

The survey was an important part of the product system because it allows the user to share details of their life style and goals to the theoretical financial advisors that would be on staff. The survey was separated into sections and mainly consisted of short answer questions.

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I wrote up the survey and tested it out on different users in order to fine-tune the questions and also to start collecting data for the example “results� page. Based of how the user answered the question, I could determine whether they understood the question correctly and that spoke to their financial literacy.

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Digital Wireframing For digital wireframing, I used the program Sketch. Sketch was a good choice because it is more flexible when it comes to graphic design and it allows you to link styles on different art boards. It also accepts many plug-ins to make the most realistic interfaces.

However, it did not allow me to make a clickable prototype.

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Prototyping For prototyping, I used a program called Flinto. Flinto was a plugin for Sketch and I soon found out that it wasn’t the best program for me to use. Flinto is good for interesting interactions and animations but for simple, clickable, typeable websites, Flinto was not my best option. Next time I will use Axure or something similar.

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Style Guide

I wanted the aesthetic of the website to use flat graphics and be fairly simple. The color scheme needed to be feminine but not too in your face girly. Green felt necessary, this being a money related product, so I went with muted tones for a subtle pink and green aesthetic.

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Final

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6

Conclusion Final concept, renders, and product system

Product Line

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Large Style The large style is best for students or busy professionals as it can switch easily between a tote and a backpack. It has an inside compartment for a laptop or for filing away papers. It also has an stirdy compartment that can be accessed from the outside or inside to protect small items from getting lost or squashed in the large interior space.

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Small Style This wallet, despite is small size, is extremely accessible and versatile. It has all the space you should need for cash, cards, IDs, and coins. A zipper surrounds the outside, keeping it’s contents closed and secure. The amount feature is best paired with this wallet. It allows you to make decisions about your spending without having to open up your wallet.

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Amount The amount feature does not show you concrete numbers but gives you an idea of where you are in a certain range.

Budget The budget feature shows you the most amount of information.

This would need to be directly linked to a money management app and organized by topic for best results.

Goals The most motivating of the three features. Sometimes setting a new goal is the best way to get started at being more proactive with your money.

These features would be synced to your smart phone and computer in order to display information from the money management app of your choice or information from your bank directly. They can be used individually or paired together depending on the user’s focus and need for improvement.

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Customization is a huge part of what would make this product line a success. Because each person has a different lifestyle, different interests, and different financial situations, it is important to match certain features with certain styles. That is where the survey comes into play. When the user takes the survey, they are recommended a combination of products. Shown above are the 9 combinations for if a user was only going to have one feature. There is also an opportunity to combine features and styles if this product line were to continue development.

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Context

At home usage

Financial Lifestyle survey

Persona Comparison

Online educational database

Online store

Mobile usage

Live updating LED display of financial information

Money management app connection

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Continued Development

Overall, these products are really just a placeholder for a product system that could be further developed. You do not necessarily need a whole bag to help facilitate better spending habits. The options are endless for a physical product that will act as a reminder to condition your brain in positive ways.

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